Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 4.djvu/281

 9-- s. iv. OCT. 28, 345 NOTES AND QUERIES. as ' The Proverbs of King Alfred,' which is printed in Wright's 'Reliquiae Antiquie ' in Kemble's 'Saloman and Saturn' (yElfric Society), and in Dr. Morris's ' Old English Miscellany' (Early English Society, 1872), p. 102. This is preserved in early thirteenth- century MSS., but seems, from the language, to be somewhat older. The Cottonian MS. in question is described in Wanley's ' Catalogus,' p. 231. and was destroyed in the Cottonian fire. The Trinity College, Cam- bridge, MS. was recovered by Mr. Aldis Wright in 1896, and formed the subject of an interesting paper in the Proceedings of the Philological Society for 1896-7, p. 401 sqo., by my friend Prof. Skeat. The Jesus College, Oxford, MS. printed by Morris reads " Sea- ford " against the " Sifforde" of the others, and suggests Seaford, co. Sussex, as the place intended. Curiously enough, Kemble, without the knowledge of any MS. statement to this effect, translated "Sifforde" as Seaford. This is much more likely than the Oxfordshire site, since that county, being in Mercia, was not under Alfred's government. In the light of modern knowledge, it is wrong to speak of an assembly in Alfred's time as a parlia- ment." The Earl Elfric, "the wise law- smith," who is mentioned as an important actor, is unknown as a councillor of Alfred, and rather suggests confusion with the times of King jEthelred. No English nobleman of Alfred^ time, or even of Althelred's, would be described contemporaneously as an "earl." Although philologically of very great inter- est, ' The Proverbs of King Alfred' are historically worthless. W. H. STEVENSON. EPITAPH AT GAWSWORTH, co. CHESTER.— There are many curious specimens of epi- taphs embalmed in the pages of 'N. & Q., and the following is certainly peculiar and unique. It is on the tomb of Sir Edwarq Fitton, baronet, who died 10 May, 1619, agee forty-six, and is inscribed beneath the effigies of him and his wife. The reference is, oi course, to Psalm cxxviii.:— Least tongues in future ages should be dumbe, The very stones thus si>eake about our totnbe, Loe two made one, whence sprange these many more Of whom a king once prpphecy'd before ; Here's the bleat man, his wife the fruitfull vine, His children th' olive plants, a gracefnll line. Whose soules and body's beauties sentence them Fittons, to weare a heavenly diadem. There are fourteen small kneeling figures, male and female, on the tomb ana on tha adjoining. In the middle of them is a femal< figure in a sitting posture wearing a ruff am hood, supposed by some to be their aun Mary Fitton, maid of honour to Queen Elizabeth, alluded to by Shakspere. The monuments of the Fitton family have been much injured and mutilated. On my last visit to Gawsworth, some twenty years ago, he canopies had entirely disappeared, and much interesting heraldry upon them was lestroyed. JOHN PICKFORD, M.A. Newbourne Rectory, Woodbridge. "TIFFIN."—I was always under the impres- ion that this was an Indian or Anglo-Indian word for luncheon. Turning, however, to Grose's 'Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue' for another purpose, I find: " Tiffing; eating or drinking out of meal time"; like 'taking a snack." The origin of the word ies, therefore, in English slang. JULIAN MARSHALL. THE TOLEDO. — Those who have been familiar for thirty or forty years with Italy must regret to find that so many of the well- known street-names consecrated by historic usage have been replaced by new-fangled terms such as Corso Vittorio Emanuele, Via Cavour, or Strada. Garibaldi, which are repeated with wearisome monotony. Espe- cially to be regretted is the disappearance of the old historic names of two of the noblest streets in Italy* if not in Europe, the Toledo at Naples and the Toledo at Palermo, which commemorate the«rule of two famous viceroys, both of them Marquises of Toledo, one of whom was, a Viceroy of Naples, the other a Viceroy of Sicily. ISAAC TAYLOR. " GiNNsi' is THE FYLDE! — In Nodal and Milner's TJlossary of the Lancashire Dialect' (English Dialect Society) !• find the follow- ing :. " fffniif Gynn (Fylde), sb., a road or passage down to the sea." And in a very brief Glossary of Old Words used in the Fyldg, bordering on the Sea Coast,' printed in the Rev. William Thornber's 'Historical and Descriptive Account of Blackpool ajid its Neighbourhood' (Poulton, 1837). I read, "Ginn, a road down to the sea. These passages seem to 'imply that, in the Fylde, a road or passage down to .the sea" is com- monly called a ginn. This needs confirma- tion. I know of oner instance in the Fylde in which the word (jinn occurs as a place- name. About a mile north of Blackpool there is a small ravine running down to the sands, and known as- The Ginn. It is de- scribed in Porter's ' History'of the Fylde' as "a deep and wide fissure in the cliffs" (p. 318). Close to the ravine tlvere is. dr was • twenty-five years ago, an old-fashionea public- house called " The Ginn Inn." On the map of Lancashire in Bowen's 'English Atlaa